Re: Some developement questions

[hw <hw@adminart.net>]

Ergus <spacibba@aol.com> writes:

> The tutorial should mention how to add packages or at least introduce
> the concepts (package, repository, extension, elpa, melpa), and a bit
> less of history. But just at the very end in order to create some
> expectations in the new user.

"A tutorial is a method of transferring knowledge and may be used as a
part of a learning process. More interactive and specific than a book or
a lecture, a tutorial seeks to teach by example and supply the
information to complete a certain task."[1]

Introducing concepts (and their history) seems more suited for a
manual.  Tutorials would accompany the manual and explain in detail how
to do something introdcued in the manual.


[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tutorial

> Even if it is only to mention as an approximation, and let the
> practical things in the manual.

Wouldn't the practical things belong into the tutorial?

> Personally I don't like the navigational structure because the simpler
> structure is better for the tutorial until the user can do the basics. A
> tutorial should feel like being inside emacs already as everyday.

I might go ahead and write a story, "Inside Emacs".  It would have a
little boy called Richard who falls alseep on a couch while his mother
is working on a LaTeX document in Emacs.  With his head resting on a big
heavy book about Emacs, in his dream he ends up in the pale light under
the key caps on the ground between the buffers, inside Emacs, where all
kinds of key bindings are scattered all over the place.  Grown-up
Richard comes along, searching for a key binding he's working on, so
they start talking, and Richard explains key bindings to Richard.  Each
time Richard hits a key binding, Richard is being moved around or jumps
up or down.  They're having a lot of fun with it, until Richard finally
finds the key binding he's looking for, and Richard wonders what it
would be like to be inside a buffer when his mother wakes him up to eat
potatoe pancakes for dinner ...

That may help people to remember all the difficult key bindings by
having a cute story to relate to.